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Michel Barnier, France’s agriculture minister, called on 14 April for Europe to increase food production amid mounting concern that riots over rising food prices in Africa and Asia presage an era of political and social insecurity.

Speaking before a meeting of EU ministers for agriculture and fisheries in Luxembourg on 14 April, Barnier told reporters that “in a world where it will be necessary to produce more and better to feed nine billion people, everyone has got to play a part, including Europe.”

Barnier has in recent days made clear that Europe’s part should be a leading one, and has said he hopes the 14 April meeting will produce a “European initiative on food security” for the world. “We cannot, and we must not leave food for people… to the mercy of the rule of the market alone and to international speculation,” he said in a interview on 14 April with French radio.

The results of the meeting, which began on fisheries issues, have yet to emerge.

Barnier entered the meeting saying he planned to unveil proposals to boost EU production of food, as well as to provide assistance to promote food self-sufficiency in less-developed countries.

France, which is the EU’s largest agricultural producer, assumes the rotating presidency of the EU in July, and Paris’s fresh calls for greater food output may prefigure other initiatives during its presidency. Barnier’s comments followed a joint statement issued by three French ministers on 11 April, including Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, that “Europe, with its high-performing farming sector and its common policy must clearly play a providing and regulating role on world food markets”.

International efforts are being demanded by the World Bank, whose president, Robert Zoellick, has in recent days repeatedly warned of a huge increase in poverty across the globe and called for Western states boost the bank’s funding to cope with an expected upsurge in emergencies.

Wheat, maize and rice prices have reached record highs over recent months, sparking riots in at least four African countries – Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Madagascar – and three Asian states: Indonesia, Pakistan and Thailand. The government in the Caribbean state of Haiti fell on 12 April after food riots that left four dead. In Burkina Faso, in West Africa, mark-ups on basic foodstuffs were behind a two-day general strike last week, and there have also been angry demonstrations in Mauritania, Mozambique and Senegal. Calmer protests have also been reported in countries in Central Asia, the Middle East and South America.

Among the leading agricultural, development and financial officials who have voiced alarm is Jean Ziegler, the UN’s Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food, who in recent days has predicted “a very long period of riots”. Earlier this month, the EU’s development commissioner, Louis Michel, warned that price hikes could trigger a “humanitarian tsunami” in Africa.

The European Commission has already unveiled a number of measures to step up food production. Milk quotas have been lifted and the obligation on farmers to set aside 10% of their land each year no longer applies. An EU agriculture spokesperson, Michael Mann, said that such efforts should be helped by two other trends – more land in new member states is becoming available and yields are increasing.

Other reasons include low harvests in many regions of the world, a huge growth in demand from east Asia and export restrictions in countries like Ukraine and Russia

Critics, though, point out that Europe should consider its pricing policy, and not just its output. In the same interview for German radio, the UN’s Jean Ziegler accused the EU of dumping food in Africa and thereby ruining the country’s agricultural systems.

Biofuels to blame?

The simultaneous increase in the production of crops for use as fuel has prompted some to voice anger at biofuels. Ziegler, for example, has called biofuels “a crime against humanity”.

The World Bank also sees strong causal links. It stated, in a report issued on 9 April, that “most scenarios of increased use of biofuels imply substantial trade-offs with food prices”. That issue may figure in the next meeting of the world’s most powerful economies, the G8 summit in Japan in July. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown wrote to the summits Japanese hosts on 9 April urging that food and biofuels be included on the agenda.

Mann, though, said that biofuels are just “one factor” contributing to the rise in food prices. “Other reasons include low harvests in many regions of the world, a huge growth in demand from east Asia and export restrictions in countries like Ukraine and Russia,” Mann said.

Mann also said the increase in biofuel production in the EU is having only a “marginal” effect on food prices, as just 2% of cereals harvested are destined for use as biofuel. This contrasts with the roughly one-quarter of a staple, corn, that the United States is currently using for biofuel.

EU heads of state in March 2007 set a target of 10% share of biofuels in transport fuels by 2020 as a means to combat climate change, but “we don’t foresee a major problem with a shift away from food production in Europe towards biofuel feedstocks”, Mann said. Around 2% of fuel is currently derived from crops and other forms of biofuel.

The Commission is currently working on ways to implement the target, Mann said. Sustainability is a key criterion.

Others are less sanguine about the EU’s goal, including the European Environment Agency, an EU agency, whose scientific committee stated on 10 April that the 10% target is “overambitious” and warned of “unintended effects that are difficult to predict and difficult to control”. It is advocating that the EU suspend its 10% goal and sponsor a new scientific study on that would set “a new and more moderate long-term target”.